Contributed by Kristy Grant-Hart, founder and CEO of Spark Compliance; Kirsten Liston, founder and principal of Rethink Compliance; and Joe Murphy, the Godfather of Compliance

So many people dream of being their own boss. They want to choose their own hours, pick the projects they want to work on and even abandon their steady paycheck in favor of building something great that is their own. Are you one of them? If you are, chances are good that you’ve been scared by the statistics about small business failure.

Is starting a business hard? Yes, but some paths make that road far less perilous than it otherwise would be.

That’s why we wrote our book, The Compliance Entrepreneur’s Handbook. It’s full of practical advice for starting your company and succeeding.
In the interest of brevity, here are the top three tips for succeeding in the world of compliance entrepreneurship from each of us:

Kristy’s Top Three Tips

• Always keep on top of your cash flow. If possible, keep a rolling 12-week forecast. If you know when you’re going to face lean times, you can prepare for them.
• Content marketing is key in this industry. Strive to be a thought leader and to create great blogs, books, white papers or other materials to share with your audiences.
• Don’t be afraid to have a distinctive point of view. Differentiating yourself from the crowd will draw business to you, if it’s done professionally.

Kirsten’s Top Three Tips

• Focus first on finding product-market fit. If you nail this, you will buy yourself time and margin to figure out the rest.
• Don’t feel like you need to know everything to start – you can learn (you will have to learn!) as you go.
• Expect to be stretched in both the best and most humbling ways possible. You’ll be both better and worse at this than you imagined.

Joe’s Top Three Tips

• For introverts, be proud of what you are. Just team with someone who likes the other stuff that is not your strength.
• Network with the people in your field. Be curious and add value for others. When you read something interesting or hear something, write to the author or speaker.
• Pick an area and master it. Kill it. Know everyone in the area and know more about that area than anyone else could know.

Above all else, our top tip is to start. There will never be a perfect time to start a business. “Someday” may never come, so commit to your timeline now and execute it faithfully.

If you follow just one of these pieces of advice, you’ll already be ahead of the game. Better yet, if you follow more than one, you’ll be setting yourself up for success from the very beginning.

Being an entrepreneur can be challenging, but it’s the smartest decision we ever made. The scariest step is the first. Take heart, take courage and take that first step.